(D7, LA) Meditations on Marriage

[Kuni Yasu]

Mornings were for doing things, active things like carefully, ritually, setting her mask in place, offering prayers, getting breakfast. Meditation, if it was going to happen, fell later in the day when thoughts needed some order imposed.

Her earlier offering paper remains pinned to the ground by the small stick shoved through it. The incense is long since burned away, but with so many leaving offerings, there's a hint of it always in the air that aids in clearing her head. So Yasu settles in the shade of the spreading tree. Her scroll case tends to be a bit awkward sitting, so she takes a moment to detach it, untying the thin blue and brown cord to slip it from her obi, wrapping it neatly around the case and setting it beside her.

Hands on her knees, she lets her eyes close, and her thoughts clear. Though perhaps, meditating upon the matches before them was not entirely a calming topic, she found some focus in the exercise.

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D7 LA Meditation/Void | TN: 2 | Success: 2 / Opportunity: 0 / Strife: 1

-2 +1: Net -1

[Kitsu Murato]

Not too far away, in a nook of the temple, Murato had been trying to center himself. There was a peace in it like always, mut his mind also fired thoughts at him in rapid fire.

He was trying to come to terms with conversations he'd had with others regarding the nature of intimacy. He found himself doubting more and more whether his conservative ideas were really worth cleaving to.

It seemed like exploration of the idea might be in order, but he had to try and understand how and why he might go about it.

D7 LA, Meditation | TN: 2 | Success: 1 / Opportunity: 2 / Strife: 2

Failed, 2 negates 2, from passion

[Kuni Yasu]

Yasu roused from her own thoughts, or attempt to have none of them, as the sun found it's way through the branches to dance across her closed eyes. A deep breath, a sighed exhale, rolled shoulders, and a stretch of spine wake up breath and mind and body to move again. Almost reflexively, she reattaches the scroll case, cord looped through obi, wrapped around the simple netsuke, looped and wrapped once more for good measure and knotted into itself. Looking up, the sun 's shifting has cast new shadows and eased others, and her eye is caught by the bright shine off a recognizable ear piercing.

Yasu starts slightly in surprise, a small, audible gasp. She looks to the tree a moment, frown creasing her brow, then her shoulders settle, and she turns her gaze back to the Kitsu, unwilling to interrupt his meditation, but ready to catch his gaze when he emerges.

[Kitsu Murato]

As he slowly opens his eyes, they are unfocused and content. a Slowly they recognize the eyes looking back... The dark brown he had looked so deeply into before. His expression shifts to something... strange. There is a mix of emotions that he cannot define. And then he slowly allows it to become a gentle smile.

Murato rises from his place and makes his way to greet her. "Good day... Yasu-san," he says making a point of using the more familiar name. "I hope the day finds you well."

His voice is not playful, his words not flirtatious, his expression only friendly.

[Kuni Yasu]

She's had the advantage of spotting him first to settle her expression and her smile, but she's not a courtier. There's no training to it, and the wistful worry never really leaves her eyes, though the smile is genuine. "It's good to see you, Murato-san." She mirrors his informality, something relaxing that had been braced for coldness, distance.

Patting the damp grass she asked, "care to sit some more, or should I get off my butt and walk with you?" There are other options, but those are the one's she's throwing out there.

[Kitsu Murato]

He moves to sit next to her, and fidgets for a few moments. "Tanabe-san, eh?" he asked, masking the roiling feelings. They were no longer out of check but still there. "We've been training together. He's a good man. And fortunate."

He doesn't even try to avoid the subject, cutting to the heart of it swiftly and with a somehow gentle hand.

[Kuni Yasu]

There's a brightness that touches her smile at just the name, though it's almost certain she'll never see orange eyes without that hint of something remembered in her own eyes. "He is, and he is, and so'm I" There's a small pause. "I'm...glad you like him." Because it would somehow be harsher if she'd made that choice and he thought it was an awful one?

She lets her fingers lace together in her lap. "I...Even if the Deer chose otherwise, I can't regret what we're able to share in the meantime. Plenty of other things I'll never be certain of."

"And Shika-san?" There's a definite question, not quite willing to offer an opinion without knowing if that choice of stage partner was born of affection or pragmatism.

[Kitsu Murato]

"We worked together to help Kaikoga Koi with some spirit related concerns. The rumors about her and I were caused by shape changing Sakkaku spirits. They likely targeted me because I was with her while searching for them. So I consider him a friend. Since the people I was going to ask for already invited and the same was true of him, we agreed to sing together," he explained.

[Kuni Yasu]

There's a long pause, absorbing several different levels of information before Yasu grins a bit...triumphantly? "Hah! I was right, there was a tanuki involved!...or well, some cousins of the realm. Was it a tanuki?" There's a pause. "Oh...hmm...were they involved with all that picture swapping nonsense along with trying to make scandalous rumors. Because that's what I thought they were messed up in."

"Not that, ah...they were scandalous." her momentary excitement dims a bit awkwardly. "I'd kind of hoped maybe you two were... but no?"

[Kitsu Murato]

"Fortunes no. I expressed interest and she immediately told me she was not. We are friendly though," he said with a shrug. "But I've been speaking with others, and become close with some. I..." he pauses for a moment, wondering if he should share any of that. "I am not at a loss for what will happen in the future. I simply don't know what will happen."